Since Jasmine was distracted by anything but her husband, Ethan had the run of their wing of the small manor they shared up in the Hills. As long as he kept his large headphones on and made sure Spotify played correctly on his smartphone.
Most people would find them the pinnacle of seasonally romantic, even though they did not interact for most of this afternoon in question. But they had quickly become the kind of couple who were always aware of the other’s presence. Ethan spent more than an hour in his office, answering emails and holding conference calls before the end of the year was upon him and all of his associates were scattered across the globe for family vacations. Even so, he knew when his wife was in the den and when she had gone downstairs to bother the staff or to look for one of their several cats. (The one she was looking for was currently in Ethan’s office, curled up on a pillow in the windowsill overlooking the garden. Ethan would never tell his wife that he had decided this particular cat was his. She would fight him over it, and it wasn’t a fight worth having. Most days.) Likewise, Jasmine knew when her husband was about to enter the den to search for books kept by the fireplace. The man was already talking about renovating his office to add more bookshelves. While his office at work was sparse and pristine, his office here at home was a giant (organized) mess. Spillover had occurred two months before, and that spillover caused him to wander in and out of the den whether or not Jasmine was in there.
She was at this particular time. Scissors meticulously cut yellow felt into stars before they were glued onto red cardstock. A thick black pen wrote holiday messages, claiming to be from both Jasmine and husband Ethan. He would be expected to at least sign his name on them, and he supposed he was fine with that. (In theory, he was, but within another day he would be presented with a stack of twenty cards and wonder what he had gotten himself into.)
Ethan had happened to step into the den, on the hunt for a book detailing Brazilian business manners, when his wife received the call that would change the whole tone of their day.
As it so happened, it was also the moment his favorite album of 2016 began to play on Spotify.
“Hey!” Jasmine greeted, the ringtone she set for Nadia Gaines dissipating the moment she hit Accept. “I was just making a Christmas card for you and Eva! You guys like tinsel, right?”
As usual, when Nadia called one of her best friends, she had no idea how to respond to Jasmine’s strange greetings. Because who answered the phone with a mere Hi! anymore? “Uh, yeah, sure. Tinsel’s fine. The hell are you doing with tinsel, though?”
Jasmine picked up a gob of tinsel before one of the cats could turn it into an unfortunate lunch. It still was not that cat she had been looking for earlier. (For why would she think to look in Ethan’s office? She never went in there when he wasn’t present, anyway.) “Like I just said, I’m making Christmas cards, duh.”
“Oh, of course.”
Jasmine put the finishing touches on the calligraphy she carefully created on the card in front of her. “So what’s up? Did Eva’s parents drop by early for Christmas and try to figure out your religious background again?”
If Jasmine could see her friend on the other end of the line, she would see Nadia gritting her teeth and shifting awkwardly in the dining room chair she called her perch in Eva’s studio apartment. “They refuse to accept that my parents both come from Catholic stock. I thought that would go over better than the Jewish thing, but those people will find any reason to call me wanting. Besides…” Wait, why was Nadia entertaining this idiocy? This wasn’t why she called Jasmine! “Never mind. I actually don’t have a lot of time to talk, but I wanted to ask you something.”
That certainly piqued Jasmine’s interest. “What?”
“Have you heard of someone named Cassandra Welsh?”
Jasmine searched for that name in the depths of her memory. In truth, she had probably heard of someone named Cassandra before. God knew Jasmine had met a million heiresses and their mothers over the past several months. Most of them had been invited to her wedding that June. Some of them still tried to invite her to their brunches and garden parties.
So it was entirely possible that she had heard the name Cassandra Welsh in passing. But she knew for a fact that such a name had not been on her wedding guest list, and she would be right in assuming she had never met someone named Cassandra recently, let alone since she started seeing Ethan as more than the boss she slept with.
“Nooooo,” Jasmine admitted. “That name doesn’t ring a bell.”
It would’ve ringed her husband’s bell, but Ethan could neither hear his wife’s conversation nor anything but the album thrumming in his headphones. He occasionally looked over his shoulder at her while he continued to peruse his bookshelves, but as far as he was concerned, his wife was talking about Christmas and the families coming to visit.
“Oh, boy.”
“What is it?” Jasmine set aside the recently completed card and picked up green cardstock. “An ex of yours?”
“No ex of mine. More like an ex of your husband’s.”
Jasmine dropped her scissors before the first incision could be made. “Come again? I don’t recall him dating anyone named Cassandra.” She looked at Ethan, who was still oblivious to his wife’s conversation. While Jasmine was aware of many of the women her husband had dated over the past few years – including his business partner, of all people – she did not know a Cassandra. Had Ethan ever mentioned one? (No.) Was she the kind of woman he would normally be into? (Not at all.) Was she someone he would fondly talk about? (Absolutely not.)
Well, that didn’t leave Jasmine many options on the hunt for this woman’s identity. Now that the name was planted in her head, it would grow until she had a face, a voice, and a personality to associate with it.
“She was before you came into the picture.” Before Jasmine could give her friend a testy obviously, Nadia continued. “About a year before he hired you, right around when I started working for him. Anyway, this wasn’t one of the women he hired to be his secretary. This was someone he dated in between secretaries.”
Nadia was the only other person who could flippantly talk about her boss’s dating life, let alone from the days before Jasmine. While it was no secret that Jasmine was originally a personal assistant hired to both work and play with the boss, their relationship had obviously grown to the point where they could now say they had been happily married for six months. Nevertheless, other women had existed who weren’t so lucky when it came to dating Ethan. One was infamous for spitting on him right in front of Jasmine. But that woman wasn’t named Cassandra.
“Go on.” Jasmine kept a leveled gaze on her husband.
“Cassandra is one of the only heirs to the Welsh fortune. You at least know of the Welshes, yeah?”
What an unnecessary question. Jasmine was not the best when it came to remembering who was who around the country club, but she knew all the biggest players, including the Welshes – a family that hadn’t done much in the way of introducing themselves to her yet. They seemed to prefer to keep to themselves, like the Alisons and the Winchesters.
“I know of them, yes.”
“Cassandra is rather legendary around these parts. It’s rumored she’s slept with every rich guy under the age of forty. Before she moved to Seattle a year ago.”
“That so? Lucky girl.”
“I guess. But that includes your husband.”
“So?” Jasmine couldn’t afford to get jealous every time she heard of a woman having had carnal relations with Ethan. He had been quite candid about his wandering dick. Wasn’t like Jasmine was Virgin Mary when they met, either. As long as he remained loyal to her in their relationship, Jasmine’s ability to give a flying fuck was next to nil – besides, this was the man who currently considered one ex-girlfriend his important business partner and another one of his closest friends. What. Ever.
“Cassandra isn’t your usual ex-girlfriend material,” Nadia said. She would know, too, having been on the front line of seeing who Ethan dated for a good many months. “Let’s just say she’s even slept with Eva.”
“And Adrienne the Ex-girlfriend-almost-fiancée has also slept with Ethan. So what?”
Nadia sighed. “Come on, Jas, I’m trying to help you out here. This woman’s an omnivore. There’s a reason she has the reputation that she does.” She then lowered her voice. “There’s a rumor that she moved because she had a miscarriage.”
“Well we know it can’t be Ethan’s.” The man had a vasectomy long before any Cassandra could’ve been in the picture. “That’s pretty juicy, though.”
“It’s just a rumor. Trust me when I say she’s been with everyone.”
“Everyone? Even like…” Jasmine pulled the first big name to come out of her ass. “Ian Mathers?”
“Yup. They were pretty infamous, actually. Always partying.”
“Henry Warren?”
“Of course! How do you think she met his sister?”
“That’s fucked up.”
“There’s a reason they joke that incest is best in the big world. Women shopping for husbands will jump from brother to brother. Or, you know, brother to son.”